Reasons for adding alt-text to your images on the fediverse:
* the many blind and partially sighted members of our community will be not be excluded by your toot
* people on poor internet connections, data-restricted mobile devices, or other technical limitations can still get the context of the image you shared
* provide extra context and information perhaps not covered in the main body of your toot, making your toot more engaging
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Next toot, how to write alt-text!
teilten dies erneut
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •How To Write Alt-Text:
* You don't need to write an essay, and for artists, you don't need to convey the 'meaning' of your work.
* Is it a photo? Painting? Sketch?
* What media did you use, and what colours are there? Is it a black and white photo, a bright colourful painting, a sketch with pastels?
* What are the most important elements? Is it a photo of a horse, a painting of flower, a sketch of some people?
* What's the tone; is it a moody photo, a calm scene?
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teilten dies erneut
IngridAusOL und - Micaela haben dies geteilt.
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •If it's a screenshot of text, write out the text as the alt-text. Mastodon has a feature where you can choose to 'detect text from picture' from the image after attaching it. You do often have to clean up the generated text, and it struggles especially with symbols. See attached, and also read the alt-text to see how I've described this attached image.
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Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •You have 1500 characters to play with (on default Mastodon, at least), but you don't have to use all of them. If you're low on spoons or aren't sure what to write, just adding 'a photo of a dog' or 'a painting of some trees' is better than nothing.
Once you start getting used to writing descriptive alt text that covers the core elements of the image and conveys the important bits, you can start expanding on that -
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Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •For example, 'A colour photo of a dog from the neck up. It's a grey-black short hair dog with white patches that frame its eyes and nose. Its head is cocked slightly and its ears are sticking straight up, and it's looking towards the photographer with an eager expression.'
Cover the most important things first, then you can play with more detail (but don't go wild; remember, people using screen readers have to listen to what you've written).
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Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Alt text for traditional art can feel more daunting, especially for abstract work. It's fine to describe your abstract piece as 'an abstract work of art', and if you piece is meant to symbolise or convey a particular concept you had in mind when creating it, feel free to say that. For example,
'An abstract artwork in black and red ink on white paper, with lines that vary in thickness scrawled in a tangled mess. It's meant to represent how my thoughts feel when I have brain fog.'
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Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •A lot of people on the fediverse won't boost toots with attached media that doesn't have alt-text, because it's not fair to the blind folk in our community and excludes them from the 'social' part of social media. So if you're here to build an audience around your work, it makes sense to make the extra effort to get into the habit of including alt text with your images; you'll get more interaction with your posts that way.
However, if you're a spoonie (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_th…) -
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disability metaphor for the reduced amount of mental and physical energy available for tasks resulting from disability or illness due to ego depletion, fatigue, and other factors
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Ulrike Heiß hat dies geteilt.
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •- and don't have the spoons or are otherwise incapable of writing alt-text, there are options! (Also, please, for the rest of us, don't yell at people about not including alt-text. Be nice, be gentle, be informative.)
You can use the
emoji in your post to ask for others to help you write alt-text, you can use the #Alt4Me hashtag which people keep an eye on to provide alt-text help, or tag the @ imagecaptionspls@a.gup.pe group, and someone will help you out.
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Reinder Dijkhuis Does Art hat dies geteilt.
MurmeltHier
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Ooh, one last thing: tips on encouraging use of alt-text!
If you find a toot you'd really like to boost, but it doesn't have alt-text;
* Ask the person if they'd be willing to add alt text so that you can boost their post. Be nice.
* Write the alt-text yourself in a reply to their post, with something like 'adding alt-text here before I boost', then boost it - people often look at replies to see if someone else has added alt-text, and often the OP will add it to their image.
Ariane :btfly: Noxie
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Ariane :btfly: Noxie • • •Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •mastodon.art is a safe space instance that focuses on providing a safe environment for the most marginalised people in our community. This includes disabled people, which includes visual disabilities, so it's especially relevant to the culture of our instance that we foster an inclusive, accessible, community.
mastodon.social/@AltTextHealth…
We're usually around 4-5in the list here with 70-75% alt-text use. For an instance our size, that's pretty great, but I'd still like it to be higher.
Alt Text Health Check (@AltTextHealthCheck@mastodon.social)
MastodonReinder Dijkhuis Does Art hat dies geteilt.
Sylvia Ritter
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Draken BlackKnight
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Those last two words are important. A lot of "requests" I receive for alt text read a LOT like cyberbullying and I have to stop myself from blocking the person making the "request."
Jim Spath
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Scarlet Phoenix Collective
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Acin on .art
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Sensitive content
Community members who rely on alt text include Blind folk, people with impairments from color blindness or some arthritises or migraines restricting details, people on data-limited internet connections who have to put in extra work to view each image/video, and a variety of Sighted people who need additional context with media uploads.
Text as simple as "Selfie from the waist up."
or "Sunset at the bridge."
or even "singing to music"
can help confirm what the file is.
Tal⚘a
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Tal⚘a • • •Tal⚘a
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •ɟloʍ
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • •@Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
That ist exactly not the way that alt texts shoud be used. Alt texts has a specific purpose that is to describe in words, what is to be seen on the image visualy. Not less, not more!
Its not the place for any Kind of "extra information" (no copyright mentions or the like)
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf ɟloʍ • • •ɟloʍ mag das.
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •ɟloʍ mag das.
Queer Lisoo
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •True question about users on Mastodon !
Mighty Orbot
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Brandon Mitchell
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Michael de Jong
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Michael de Jong • • •Cat
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •I read alt text for the "extra context" function more often than I thought I would at first.
Like, think about how many tattoo pix you may have seen on other platforms where you couldn't figure out which part of the body was represented.
Crimperman
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Mikal with a k
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Mikal with a k • • •SinkingTeacup
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Ken Fallon (PA7KEN, G5KEN)
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Robert Moerland
Als Antwort auf Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator • • •Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
Als Antwort auf Robert Moerland • • •